I'm divorcing a narcissist after 8 years of crazy. This is my story of getting out and healing from the abuse.

Narcs and Children

It was my birthday this past weekend, and I can genuinely say that I had a great birthday. My friends, co-workers and family made me feel really special and took what I feared might be a depressing event for me and made it great. You see this birthday was a tough one for me because this was the year that the Narcissist and I had planned to start our family. This was the year that I thought I was finally going to get something that I wanted out of our life together, something that was vitally important to me and who I am as a person. Letting go of that dream, and letting go of that ‘happy ending’ is something that has taken a lot of work on my end.

I’ve come to a place where I am very thankful that the Narcissist and I never had children. First and foremost, I would never want children to suffer the psychological and emotional effects of having a narcissistic parent. Secondly, I would have never wanted them to grow up in a divorced home and that ending was really inevitable. I am only human, no matter how happy I would have been to be a mother, I would have never been able to put up with the Narcissist for the next 60 years without cracking. Finally, never having children with the Narcissist gives me the ability to find a healthy, stable, loving person to raise babies with – and I am thankful for the ability to start fresh with someone that way.

Some interesting thoughts / takeaways from my journey:

I am Angry at the Narcissist because I feel that he has limited my ability to do the one thing I have always dreamed of – become a mother.The Narcissist knew from day 1 that I dreamed of having children and that this was something that was VERY important to me in life. Before meeting the Narcissist I wanted to have children earlier, I wanted to have 4 or 5 kids, and I wanted to be able to stay home with them and raise them through the early years of their life. This was something that the Narcissist used to appreciate about me in the beginning (or at least that’s what he told me.) Over the course of our marriage, the Narcissist prioritized many many things ahead of having children, and they all made sense to me at the time. Let’s get our finances in order, let’s get out of the military first, let’s get our careers established, let’s get your body into the best shape so it can bounce back quickly… the list became never ending. When I realized that the Narcissist wanted to create the ideal and perfect scenario before we had children, I started to get worried that his timeline and my biological clock were not aligned. When I began to voice those concerns to him, he immediately found ways to make me feel guilty. He claimed that I wanted children more than I wanted the marriage, and even accused me of using him to get his DNA. After endless tears and arguments over the topic, the Narcissist agreed that he thought 32 was when we would start our family. I think he just picked that date because it seemed far enough off in the distance and would shut me up. As we got closer to that age, the Narcissist found more reasons why we weren’t ready for children… and my ovaries started freaking out that I would never get to have children at all. This weekend I turned 32, and I definitely spent some time battling the anger and battling the tears. You see, the Narcissist will marry someone young. The Narcissist will have all the time in the world to find his next victim and plan a family (if that is even what he really wants) and my clock is ticking. I know that 32 is still young – but the idea of meeting a normal and sane person, healing from the trauma the Narcissist has caused me, and being able to still have babies before its ‘too late’ is completely overwhelming. I feel like the Narcissist has potentially taken this option away from me, and I am deeply and genuinely angry about it.

There were warning sings that made me believe that the Narcissist would be a terrible parent.
The Narcissist had a number of quirky ideas about having kids that sent up big red flags for me… which I of course ignored. The Narcissist only wanted to have girl children, and he was convinced that God was planning this for him. He had spiritual people look into his future and he had 3 daughters. As his wife, I was not allowed to even fathom the possibility of having a boy child, I was not allowed to want a boy child, and I was not allowed to talk about it… at all. The Narcissist often spoke of how he loved the idea of having mini versions of me to love him. I think that what the Narcissist never said, but really felt is that he would not be able to handle me having a bond with another male. I think he would have felt threatened by his own son, which is why he refused to have one. The Narcissist openly wanted to genetically select our children to be all female, and have the best genes. He looked into the opportunities for this and wanted to potentially use artificial insemination and implant embryo’s so that we could choose. He also wanted me to only be pregnant once, so if we could arrange to have all 3 children as triplets… he wanted to do that. The Narcissist also began to express his desire to have a live in nanny who would care for the children nearly full time so that we would never have to give up our routine of fitness, sex, etc. He also had some interesting ideas on how I should eat and exercise during and after a pregnancy so that my body would bounce back.

The Reality
I know it sounds crazy now to look back at these things – but when I was stuck in the midst of it, I actually thought that having children, and having that bond of love might help heal the Narcissist. I thought that creating something new and special might heal the wounds that he had as a child from his own mother. I thought that creating our family, our traditions, our world would strengthen our marriage and make him feel more secure.

The more and more research that I have done on narcissism the more that I have realized that having children would have only provided him with more tools to feed his ego. I would have been putting children at risk to have serious psychological and emotional trauma as a result of his narcissism.

So, while I am still angry at the limited time I feel like I have today – I am so thankful that the Narcissist was adamantly against us having children. I am glad that he worried about pregnancy being contagious and was afraid to let me wander down the baby aisle in Target. I am glad that he didn’t want me to attend baby showers. I am glad that he obsessed over my birth control regiment. I am glad that his OCD kept us from being parents, because now I have the opportunity to do it right… to provide a healthy home for children… to be the kind of Mom I dreamed of being.

So..I too was married to a narcissist..that was also in an “elite” military unit. most of your stories and insights feel like you are explaining exactly who I was married to and exactly what happened to my life and my youth over the years I was entangled in his web. I can look back now and realize what happened….and I am clear of it..but I still feel the residual affects that the relationship and the narcissistic psychopath’s toll took on me at times. It’s disturbing but also nice to see that I wasn’t crazy…and I am not the only one to experience this. Also, something about these units, let the lifestyle of these types of men be permissible…they are supposed to be honorable, and full of integrity but at the same time their running around on wives/girlfriends, gym and appearances are applauded more than having morals, and loyalty to their loved ones…I am also military and work in and around these units for a majority of my career. The book I could write for all these women who don’t know any better, the light I could shed….

Jessica, Thank you for reading! I have also found a strange sort of comfort in knowing that I am not alone, yet at the same time a horror that this is so prevalent yet rarely talked about. It is easy to get swept up in the excitement of being with someone in the military that way and before you know it your life isn’t your own anymore. I am glad to hear that you got out of your situation, and hope that you continue healing from the abuse. ❤

A similar thing happened to me. I was married to a narcissist for 10 years. I always wanted children but had a hard time getting pregnant and he was not supportive. He would roll his eyes when I tried to talk to him about it or ask if I was getting my period if I got emotional. He had told me he wanted a family right from the beginning but then showed no interest in it when things didn’t come easy. He also never wanted to have sex which made it hard to get pregnant. After 10 years of marriage I left him. Within two weeks he had met someone else and a few months later they were expecting a baby. He moved her into our marital home and later named their daughter the name we had discussed for our future daughter If we were ever to have one. I have been no contact with him for almost two years now but it’s still very painful. Your blog strikes a chord and reading others experiences has helped in my recovery.

I have only now found your blog (and I am reading every post from the beginning) so I know my comment is really late. I am now 32 and have 2 kids with my narcissistic husband. We are going through a divorce. The turmoil of trying to save my children from this crazy person is more than I would wish on my worse enemy. So as amazing as children are, and as much as you wanted to have them, I do feel that it’s a blessing to have not had them with your narc. I am not far enough into your story yet to know if you’ve already had children, but I’m sure when you do they will be amazing little humans that can be raised free of the trauma associated with having a narc parent. Praying for you and your life free of abuse.